Despite Time honor, India’s Modi has not executed his power forcefully, Baker Institute expert says

EXPERT ALERT

Jeff Falk
713-348-6775
jfalk@rice.edu

Despite Time honor, India’s Modi has not executed his power forcefully, Baker Institute expert says

HOUSTON – (Dec. 8, 2014) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who entered office this year on the promise of reviving the country’s economy, is the winner of the 2014 readers’ poll for Time Person of the Year, the magazine announced today. Despite this honor, Modi has not executed his power forcefully enough to tackle the country’s economic challenges, according to an India expert at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Credit: narendramodi.in

“Modi has achieved the largest consolidation of power in India since Indira Gandhi in the ’70s and ’80s, and he wants to unleash the Indian economy to regain the mojo of the last decade,” said Rice economist Russell Green. “But despite glitz and fanfare, he has not executed his power forcefully.”

Green, the Baker Institute’s Will Clayton Fellow in International Economics and an adjunct assistant professor of economics at Rice, is available to comment on India’s economy and Modi’s reform efforts. Green served as the U.S. Treasury Department’s first financial attaché to India from 2008 to 2011.

“I hope that by next year we can point to substantial measures to liberalize the economy and improve government performance,” he said. “We will see if industrial activity picks up or if the Clean India initiative makes a difference. But until then, the jury is out.”

Apart from the readers’ poll, the editors of Time will choose a Person of the Year, who will be announced Wednesday.

For more information or to interview Green, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

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Related materials:

Green biography: http://bakerinstitute.org/experts/russell-green.

Founded in 1993, Rice University’s Baker Institute ranks among the top 15 university-affiliated think tanks in the world. As a premier nonpartisan think tank, the institute conducts research on domestic and foreign policy issues with the goal of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of public policy. The institute’s strong track record of achievement reflects the work of its endowed fellows, Rice University faculty scholars and staff, coupled with its outreach to the Rice student body through fellow-taught classes — including a public policy course — and student leadership and internship programs. Learn more about the institute at www.bakerinstitute.org or on the institute’s blog, http://blogs.chron.com/bakerblog.